Belonging
by Wolf of Summer
Summary: Lelouch, a vampire prince, is constantly picked on in the monster realm because he is weak. He fears for his mother and siblings, who always stand up for him, and leaves to find his place in the human realm, despite the human's natural fear of monsters.
1. Chapter 1

oOo

The easy part about his escape from the monster realm to the human one is just that—the escape. Finding his place in the human realm proves to be much harder.

It wasn't like he didn't have contacts, though, being the eleventh vampire prince. C.C., the witch that his mother had befriended, grudgingly forged him an identity, giving him a birth certificate as a human and enough cash to help him find a place to stay. Mr. Ashford, the half-sorcerer who had fled to make a decent life for his daughter, allowed him a place in the academy he'd inherited from his human father.

The monster realm was a cruel place, after all. Only the strong survived, and when Lelouch first heard some human's versions of Hell, he'd nearly laughed at how similar to his birthplace it had seemed. Still, for the weak, there was really very little choice: he could either stay and attempt to live a normal life in the monster world while constantly being picked on and singled out for weakness, or escape and attempt a different, hidden life in the human realm that was constantly plagued by the possibility of being found out and shunned—or worse, killed—for the simple transgression of _being_.

There had been little Lelouch could have done. A vampire, though considered the noblest of all monsters, was treated the worst if there was something wrong with it. And Lelouch, with a body that had been so sick from birth that he could barely exercise without fainting, had been treated the worst of all. No one had wanted a sickly prince. Only his mother and dear siblings had been able to look out for him, and Lelouch was quickly tiring of his strong (so, _so_ strong) mother starting to look defeated after every argument with his father, and his twin siblings, Nunnally and Rolo, getting into fights to protect him (and he hated it, for what use was a big brother if he couldn't protect his younger siblings?).

So he'd left. No note, nothing. A kiss on his family's foreheads in the dead of the night and a call to a green-haired witch that had somehow made quite the living for herself as a shop owner in the human realm.

And there he was in the present. Attending school like he'd never thought he'd be able to and making friends.

Well, trying to. It didn't escape his attention that the only person who barely even tolerated him was Milly, the school president, and that most of the other students, though they praised his beauty, found him disgusting, dangerous even. He'd been at school for two years before he decided to give up trying.

Of course, the universe wouldn't leave him alone. Enter one Suzaku Kururugi during his senior year of high school, all blazing eyes and outspoken morals. It was from him that Lelouch learned the reasons for the hatred. Turns out humans don't like something that steals from their blood bank reserves (that could go towards helping more _humans_, despite the fact that Lelouch really only drank the _rejects_, the blood that would be more liable to make the receiving human sicker and instead did the same to him) and hate even more a creature that they believe will kill them in their sleep.

So the poor, sickly vampire stopped. Refused to eat, even as C.C., who brought the blood to him every week, began to look at his increasingly translucent skin and weak limbs with sad, suffering eyes, and as Mr. Ashford stopped him in the hall more than once to ask how he was feeling. Grinned and bore it, joined the student council, did everything Milly told him to and tried his best to live up to Suzaku's standards (because if he could please the school's new, _perfectly_ human sports idol, then he could make friends).

And thank goodness for the incredibly slow metabolism of vampires, that even in his weakened state he managed to stop eating entirely for long enough that he began to be graced with a smile from that righteous boy. That other students stopped being afraid and started reaching out _towards _him, and soon the student council was a lively place.

It was when Suzaku decided to invite him over his house for a sleepover one night that Lelouch realized that he'd actually done it—he'd been accepted, and made a friend.

He should have known then, that it was too good to be true. Because try as he might, there was only so long a supernatural being could go without sustenance and living only on willpower and tainted happiness alone. It had been almost exactly four months since the beginning of his forced fast—an astonishing amount of time, even for the strongest of vampires—when his body finally gave out on him. The day of his birthday in fact, and he'd been feeling more run-down that usual when he'd walked into the student council room to the squawking of noisemakers as his friends—yes, _friends _—celebrated the day of his birth. There had been a party, the first he'd ever had in celebration of his birth in fact, and he never had known why there had been such gatherings every year in his old home for his healthy siblings until he'd read about it when he'd first transferred to his new home. No one had ever wanted to celebrate the birth of a sickly prince, so no one had explained to concept of a birthday party, nor even considered holding one for him.

That day, he opened a birthday gift for the first time, a cell phone from Suzaku with a card bearing the words _so you can keep in touch with all of your friends_. He knew then that he would be heartbroken to lose any of this. So, he laughed with the rest of them, forced cake down his throat (human food _burned_), and bid them all a farewell as they went home, staying behind to wonder at it all as he pored over the last few documents that needed filing for the student council before winter break.

He focused on the words, but they blurred, and he felt his body start to tremble. Somewhere in the back of his head he heard C.C., who'd been keeping tabs on him, telling him '_no, no, don't close your eyes'_ and felt his skull smacking down onto the desk, eyes twitching violently as he watched the cell phone that dear Suzaku, the catalyst for his change, had given him vibrate and fall off the desk, the screen a bright light in the end of his sudden tunnel vision. And as he realized himself _and thought no, no, no_ that it was too late to even try and find some food source and _nonononono_ his eyes were falling shut and the strength leaving his body and _WHY? _he was gone.

oOo

**If it seems like it was written weirdly, it is. On purpose. It's also painfully short. Not on purpose. **

**I'm considering writing a second chapter. Thoughts?**

** Reviews are nice!**


	2. Chapter 2

It was Suzaku who found the body. Which was ironic, really, since he was the reason Lelouch had starved himself to death anyway. At first he'd thought his friend was sleeping, and hadn't really been worried about the paleness of his skin because Lelouch had always looked like that, especially recently.

When he went to shake his friend awake, he noticed that he was cold, colder than usual. A couple of fingers went to that tiny, birdlike wrist to check a pulse, and suddenly Suzaku was scrambling back, hitting a desk and breathing hard.

"No…" There had to be something wrong. Just yesterday, Lelouch had been with them, alive; droopy-eyed and sluggish, but _alive_. "How did this…?"

Milly was the next student council member to drop by, swanning in before stopping dead as she took in the scene before her: Lelouch, seemingly asleep on the desktop, his phone dead on the ground next to him, and Suzaku, Lelouch's best friend, on the ground next to him, looking at him with a horrified face and tears streaming down his cheeks.

"I-I'll go get help." Milly dashed out. Suzaku stayed where he was, still shocked and unable to move.

Because no matter how he wanted it, Lelouch didn't move. His chest was still, his half-shut eyes unblinking. It wasn't real—he couldn't accept it.

oOo

Lelouch hadn't had any immediate relatives listed. Milly's father had had the body moved to Lelouch's bedroom, and started to arrange for a funeral. Suzaku, for lack of anything better to do, stayed by his friend's side, still so shocked that someone that looked so calm was no longer living.

That night, the door opened while Suzaku kept a vigil next to the vampire. A tiny girl stepped in, followed by a boy with hair and eyes identical to hers. Suzaku had never seen them before in his life, so he leapt to his feet, ready to defend his friend's body from the intruders.

The boy opened his mouth, a growl low in his throat, but the girl put an arm out in front of him before anything else happened. "Rolo. Calm down."

"But it's _his _fault!"

"He didn't know." The girl looked over at Suzaku, the slight accusation in her eyes telling Suzaku that he wasn't completely off of the hook from whatever he'd done. Suzaku swallowed his fear and prepared to speak. He'd seen the fangs in Rolo's mouth. They were just like the ones Lelouch had, though Suzaku had only seen them one or two times, because the black-haired male had stubbornly kept his mouth shut, even when smiling and laughing, both of which, now that Suzaku thought about it, he'd done very rarely. It was obvious that these two were monsters, and vampires at that.

"What do you want?" He asked, only a slight tremor in his voice.

"What do you think?!" Spat Rolo, stepping forward. "You and your stupid _human_ friends killed our brother!"

Suzaku was shocked. "Wha—no, we were his friends! None of us would _ever_ hurt him." He paused. "Wait, your brother?"

The girl, meanwhile, had moved to the other side of the bed and was stroking Lelouch's face. "Lulu, what happened to you?" She whispered, almost too quietly to hear.

"Yes, he is…was our brother." Rolo continued, joining his twin next to the bed, and for the first time Suzaku noticed the sadness hidden behind the boy's ferocious demeanor. He grasped a limp hand. "You _idiots_ killed him."

Suzaku was about to protest, but the girl distracted him, lightly pushing the hem of her brother's shirt up. He gasped at what he saw.

Lelouch's skin was disgustingly translucent, veins showing clearly through the skin. The ribs visible below his shirt stuck out obscenely from his body, and his stomach was painfully thin. Suzaku wondered how he'd even been able to move with such a destroyed body.

The girl let out a choked sob, placing one hand on her brother's forehead. "Brother, why did you have to do this to yourself? We could have helped. We didn't mind defending you."

Suzaku was paralyzed. There were so many questions burning at the tip of his tongue. He looked imploringly at Rolo.

"He died of starvation." Rolo said bluntly. "Vampires are able to spend about three months without food before they have to worry about consequences. He spent nearly four months without food."

The girl stroked Lelouch's forehead, softly singing a lullaby. Suzaku looked away, not daring to interrupt such an intimate moment.

"Why would he do that?" Asked Suzaku. "I mean, I know I said that stealing blood from blood banks was disgusting, but couldn't he just eat normal food?"

The girl paused in her singing. "Vampires can't eat human food. It burns our insides. We can only drink blood, and based on the way Lelouch's body feels, he's only ever drunken diseased or weak blood while in this realm. With a body like his, he should have died within two months or less."

Suzaku glanced questioningly at the boy again. He explained "Nunnally is a Sensor. She can feel what a person—or recent corpse—has done or seen in their past. And she's right—Lelouch was never treated as more than dirt in our realm. He wanted to belong, so he moved here."

The teen was hit with a sudden realization. "So you mean…"

"Yes. He wanted to be friends with you and the others, so he stopped doing everything that you found disgusting—eating, primarily." Rolo gently kissed the hand he held before laying it carefully back on the sheet. "He also never got to receive his Gift, and that probably hurt his mind as well."

"Gift?"

Nunnally spoke up. "All vampires are given a Gift at when they turn sixteen. I can Sense. Rolo can manipulate Space. Our brother left just before he would have received his. The worst part is that his gift, Obedience, would have granted him friends, but he was so hated that I wonder if anyone ever explained to him what a Gift was. Without their Gift, vampires tend to feel incomplete, and it wreaks havoc on their mind as they grow."

Suzaku felt sick to his stomach as he finally realized all that he'd done. The first time he'd met Lelouch, he'd hated him for nothing more than what he was. His first words to him had been "_Go back where you came from, you disgusting parasite. You don't belong here." _And here he was finding that the unfortunate vampire hadn't even really been complete, and had been hated already in the place he should have been able to call home.

And yet Lelouch had forgiven him. He'd chosen the hardest route to his goal. He knew that Suzaku found drinking blood repulsive, so he'd stopped, despite already being sick from drinking rejected blood.

"How did he manage to move for so long without food?" Asked Suzaku. "Humans collapse after a few days."

"Vampire's bodies are built for endurance. We can keep moving up until the moment of our death because we will take any chance at all to replenish ourselves, no matter how long it has been. It's a case of _all or nothing_." Rolo stated in a monotone.

Nunnally sighed, fixing Lelouch's shirt. "My poor brother. The pain you must have felt."

Rolo rose suddenly, holding one hand over Lelouch. "Nunnally. Mother's calling us back."

Nunnally nodded, rising with more grace than her brother. "Go. I'll follow soon. I want a short talk with this _human._" Suzaku detected a hint of a snarl under her sweet voice and shivered, wondering if he'd have to bolt soon because there was an angry vampire on his heels.

Rolo blinked, acknowledging her, and seemed to concentrate for a moment before Lelouch rose out of the bed, lying flat as if carried on a board. He floated next to Rolo as the light-haired boy left the room, and Suzaku was left alone with Nunnally.

"He can manipulate Space, remember." She said. "Suzaku, give me your hand."

Trembling, Suzaku reached a hand out to the small girl, not daring to disobey her. She snatched at it, holding it tightly between two hands and closing her eyes in concentration. After a moment, she released him.

"I've looked into your memories of my brother. Since you didn't intentionally try to kill him, I will let you live. But remember, _Kururugi Suzaku_," She hissed his name. "My brother and I will be keeping a watch over you. You've killed one of the most innocent of our kind out of nothing but pure spite. You have never even been directly affected by a monster yourself, so your feelings of hatred have no base but stupidity. You interact with other monsters daily, though you don't realize it because they are all too scared to talk because of people like _you._ And if you _ever_ hurt another monster again, I will take you to our realm and see how long you stay alive if we lock you in a cage with a starving dragon."

She paused and took a shuddering breath. What she said next was almost only to herself. "I hope it doesn't come to that. My brother had forgiven you by the time he died, even if _I_ don't think you deserved it. Please don't make me go against some of his last wishes. Just know that you have allowed something beautiful to die," She accusingly at him. "and _you_ didn't even know what you did."

With a final, definite nod, the girl stood and left, leaving Suzaku shivering behind her.

oOo

If anyone ever asked Kururugi Suzaku, why, years later, he'd turned his family's shrine into a safe house for monsters in the human realm, he'd stare off into the distance and answer with a quiet "I can never forgive myself for what I've done."

oOo

**Review?**


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